I am more concerned about prideful family members who say they are Christians than anyone else. When there is arrogance and lack of the fruit of God's Spirit it is harder to reach them for Christ because they are already delighted with themselves. Convincing someone they have not trusted Christ when they think they have is nearly impossible.
Standing on their own pedestal they parade their knowledge as a badge of honor without regard to humility and meekness that can only be present in those who love Christ with their whole heart. These are those who use scripture out of context to suit their own pleasures and to fit into the world system while still "feeling" they are special.
Just as the Pharisees wallowed in arrogance and disdain for others these modern self-righteous persons ignore more of the Bible than they obey when it comes to the weightier matters.
Matthew 23:23-24 "23 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay tithes of mint, dill, and cumin. But you have disregarded the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.…"
Hautily, the arrogant ones seek to judge small matters while they themselves violate larger ones. The pretenders love to see others fall and enjoy rebuking them without mercy and kindness. They love to boast of their knowledge but that knowledge is mixed with and tainted by worldly ideas that offend God.
Love drives the heart of the born-again believer. When we love we grieve over the fallen but the arrogant ones glory in the fall of someone else while believing they have never fallen.
Matthew 23:13
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let in those who wish to enter."
What love looks like for the authentically born-again believer:
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
"4 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant.
5 It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered,
6 it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
May the Lord Jesus Christ work mightily in the hearts of those who genuinely love and are submitted to Christ. May the Lord expose to those who are pretenders their need to become submitted to Christ through brokenness over their own sin of pride.
1 Corinthians 13:3 "…3 If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have not love, I gain nothing."
